


This is the End.  Literally.

by fullfrontalnerdity



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2730395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullfrontalnerdity/pseuds/fullfrontalnerdity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I mean yeah, 94% of the population is walking around eating brains but when was it ever really safe to go outside before?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Big Gulp Cup, A Rolls Royce and a Gaggle of Gingers

 

 So there are three things that you should know. Number one: I am, by far, the most amazing and important person you will ever meet.  You could pretty much ask anyone on earth and they would, I’m sure, tell you the exact same thing.  Now I know you’re thinking that I must either be downright narcissistic or have an over-inflated sense of self but the truth of the matter is, I’m awesome.   It will, unfortunately, go downhill for you in the whole “meeting incredible people” category from now on.  

 

Now that that’s out of the way, I can get on with number two; what you are currently reading is 100% true. Everything contained within this manuscript is an unaltered account of what actually happened to me. You might find it unbelievable or impossible, but it’s not; I’ve learned that very few things are impossible these days. I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what the world is like while you’re reading this but I do hope that this means something to you, because it’s all I have to give. I guess the scariest part in all of this is that I’m really just talking to myself right now; that nobody will ever read this.  If that’s the case, then I freely confess to having pulled down Will’s pants at the grade two Christmas concert. If someone _is_ reading this, please disregard my previous sentence.

 

Well, I guess that brings us to number three: the world is overrun by zombies.  Okay, I probably should have led with that, but it’s not like anything has really changed. The few people that are around are still horrible to one another, what’s left of the government is still useless and the price of gas is still ridiculous.  I mean yeah, 94% of the population is walking around eating brains but when was it ever really safe to go outside before?  I can tell you, there are a lot less car accidents then there used to be. Then again there is also a lot more shovel to the face deaths, but you win some you lose some.

 

\--

 

In most fictional zombie stories, it takes a couple of months before a real infestation.  In the real world, it took three days.  The first major problem we had was mosquitos.  A mosquito would bite someone with Z Flu and then transmit the contagion to a healthy host body.  Because the disease worked so rapidly, within three or four hours most of the southeast had already been turned.  In the early days you survived because you were lucky.  It didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, black or white, smart or stupid; Z flu didn’t discriminate.  You had to be that one in a million who didn’t get bitten.  After Day Two, when it had reached as far north as Maryland, the government deployed what we now call M-Gas.   It was designed to completely eradicate mosquitos. It did the job but had some nasty side effects.  Because the gas was so toxic, it left large boils and rashes on the surface of the skin, which was then confused for Z Flu.  About two million healthy people were killed because of mistaken identity on Day Two alone.

 

So yes, my world may be a violent messed up place, but that’s not what my story is about.  Sure, there are some cruel and brutal things I’ve had to do, but this story is actually about love; love and loss and friendship and all those other clichéd abstract ideas about what it’s like to be a human. I can’t promise you that my story is a happy one (because where would the fun be in that?) but I can promise to make you feel something.  Whether that is disgust or joy or sadness has yet to be determined. 

 

Alright, I’m stalling now.  I think it’s mainly because I’m not sure where to start. I guess the beginning so, here goes…

 

\--

 

I was born in Reno, Nevada on February 26th, 1990.   Actually, that’s a horrible place to start.  Nobody really cares about the early years.  Just know that I was an adorable child who grew into an awkward pre-teen and then magnificently butterflied into a young adult.  I’m going to skip ahead to when I was 23; the day Patient Zero hit the newsstands. I was living in New York with my then roommate Tom, who basically never spoke and could have been going out at night and butchering small children for all I knew about him.  He didn’t mind my odd hours and I didn’t mind the ten pounds of hair gel in the bathroom he used to keep his dreads just right, so really it wasn’t a horrible arrangement. I worked as a part time waitress at a diner called Silas while simultaneously losing all hope of ever becoming a successful actress.  Since arriving in New York five months prior, I had only managed to book a small time commercial for hemorrhoid cream.  It definitely wasn’t how I had envisioned my life going.  

 

When the news of patient zero broke, I was at home eating Chef Boyardee and screaming at my agent.

 

“Carmilla, I’m sorry, but there just isn’t any work right now.”

 

“Don’t give me that bull, Hayley. My co-worker Kelly just got a role on the new Die Hard movie and she has a baby hand.  A freaky little baby hand that she makes me shake every time I see her.   If her and her creepy fetus digits can get work, why can’t I?” I yelled, spitting chunks of ravioli onto the receiver.

 

“A baby hand?  I hope it’s not contagious.  Oh Jesus, I just remembered shaking your hand at that disgusting diner on 5th where the food gave me diarrhea.  Carmilla, what if you gave me the baby hand gene?  Oh my God, Sam! Sam, come here!  Does my hand look any smaller than normal?” Hayley yelled to someone else on her side of the line.

 

“You know what?  I hope you do wake up tomorrow morning with gross little infant fingers because you are the worst agent ever. I still have 8 boxes of hemorrhoid cream stashed in my garage and a bruise the size of a small African country on my ass from having been chased by that psychotic Bichon Frisé in Cypress Hills on my last audition,” I said, pausing for effect. 

 

Hayley of course had already hung up, no doubt running off to the doctor in search of a baby hand cure.  The irony of the situation is that Hayley was one of the first in Los Angeles to get bitten.  From what I heard from her husband Mick, she was mauled by a homeless man when she had stopped to shake quarters at him.   

 

After a couple of minutes of spewing expletives at Hayley’s obvious incompetence, I sat down on the couch for a night of sleazy reality television.  Tom was apparently off at his Christian book club (or drowning cats at the local sewage treatment facility) when I first heard about Patient Zero.  By some stroke of luck, CNN was the first channel I passed on my way to watching some kooky Kardashian hijinks.

 

“…It was messed up, you know? We tear gassed him first, and I’ve seen some big guys go down with that [beep].   This guy just kept coming.  He started lashing out at the other officers.  [beep] even bit Officer Jacobs.  Then Sergeant Banks tased him and we shot a couple beanbag rounds at him, but nothing.  Finally we were ordered to take the kill shot.  We must have peppered that guy with a good round each.  At first he went down but we could tell the guy wasn’t dead.  After a couple minutes he started dragging himself towards…”

 

That’s when I changed the channel. Had I watched another five minutes, I could have seen newly re-animated Officer Jacobs attacking reporters and ripping the tail off of a pit bull.    Instead, I watched Kim Kardashian taking pictures of herself while bringing her sister to jail (for the fifth time).  The rest of the night was spent watching Honey Boo Boo and eating chocolates my ex girlfriend Leanne had bought me after she cheated on me with some goth chick at a Nickelback concert.  Granted, we were never really serious because a) she had a disgusting half mullet, which I spent many a night dreaming about chopping off and b) I could never fully give myself to a woman who liked Nickelback un-ironically.  

 

It was around 11:30 at night when the knocking started. I was wrapped up like a burrito in my favorite comforter, minutes away from blissful sleep, when I heard someone frantically pounding on my front door.  I tried rolling over and ignoring it, because no one was worth giving up heavenly burrito comfort for.  When the knocking continued, I realized it couldn’t be Tom, since he had a key. I am, undoubtedly, a person with a relatively short fuse, so I untangled myself from the covers and quietly made my way to the door.  After several uncomfortable minutes, the knocking stopped.  With a sigh of relief, I began to make my way back to my bedroom when, naturally, I tripped on the corner of my coffee table.  I held my breath, hoping that my lack of grace had not made my presence known.

 

“I knew you were in there!” came a woman’s voice on the other side. 

 

Shit.

 

“I want you to know that I am an expert in martial arts and can kill a man with one swift punch to the jugular!” I screamed at my unknown assailant.  Obviously I was lying, since the one kickboxing class I had taken had ended with me having a pulled groin after attempting to kick some fat lady in stretch pants (the most humiliating part was having her help me back to my apartment).   Of course my current attacker didn’t need to know this.

 

“Carmilla, it’s Ell.  Let me in!  I’m wearing a $5,000 coat and your cross-eyed neighbor is staring at me with only one of his eyes!” came a forced whisper.

 

“No!  You know I’m mad at you for setting me up with that greasy haired drummer from your band. We spent the whole night in her parent’s basement playing Dungeons and Dragons and at the end of the date she stole my wallet.”  I whispered back through the door. 

 

Ell’s band was called The Listigs and, because she’s my friend, I can tell you that most people would rather listen to a donkey getting a prostate exam than listen to even five seconds of them play something. I use the term “play” loosely, since Ell basically just screeches into the microphone while the rest of her bandmates either lazily pluck at random guitar strings or all but destroy a perfectly good drum set.   

 

“I came all the way down to Povertyville to talk to you.  Isn’t that punishment enough?” She almost pleaded.

 

Because Ell was, admittedly, the only friend I had managed to make since moving to New York, I let her in.  Her father was also a self-made billionaire and I suspect had ties with the mob, so that helped my decision too.

 

“Pack your bags, we’re moving to Canada!” she said, rushing through the door and grabbing my t-shirt dramatically.

 

“What are you talking about?” I said, batting her hands away.  “The only thing Canada has is beavers and the metric system.”

 

“They also have universal health care and reinforced arteries from years of maple syrup drinking.  Oh yah, and they don’t have zombies!” she yelled, making her way into my bedroom, only to unceremoniously begin emptying my drawers of clothing.

 

“Jesus, what’d you do, mix shrooms into your coffee this morning?” I asked, not making any attempt to stop her. I knew better than to piss off a hallucinating nut job.

 

“You only make that mistake once,” she said as she began stuffing my clothes into a small leather suitcase. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

 

“I resent your implication that I don’t watch the news! I was watching CNN two hours ago.” I said, snatching a pink bra from her grip.

 

“Well then you know that Florida is overrun and that it’s moving north.  We have to leave now, Carmilla. I’m way too talented and good looking to become zombie chow!”

 

“You’re crazy.  Like I knew you were crazy before, especially after you dished out five grand on that hideous gorilla-fur coat, but now I know for sure. You’ve lost it.”

 

Looking back, I think that was the moment I realized how serious she was; the moment when she stomped to my bedside table and grabbed the television remote instead of defending her new coat.

 

Three hours later I was on the road to Montreal.

 

\--

 

“Ell, if you don’t stop singing I’m going to drive this $300,000 car into the nearest lake,” I screamed, violently shutting off the radio. We’d quite literally been on the road half an hour and already I was beginning to question how bad of a person I would be if I just shoved Ell out the passenger side door and booked it to Montreal by myself.  Of course, I couldn’t really book it anywhere, considering the traffic was so congested I could have gotten out of the car and changed all four tires before the car in front of me moved an inch. 

 

“I have to pee,” Ell whined, petulantly leaning against the door.

 

“Get out and pee, then.  It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”

 

“What kind of person do you think I am, Carmilla? You really expect me to just traipse around the I-95 just so I can squat and pee next to some kids in a mini-van?” she said, crossing her arms.

 

“Ok, fine.  Pee in your Big Gulp cup” I said, pointing to the drink she had forced us to stop and get before getting on the highway.

 

“No, there’s still slushie in it!” she said, holding the cup possessively against herself.

 

“What do you want me to do, put a call into the White House and ask them to send us a helicopter just so you can pee in comfort? ” 

 

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe you could have checked the traffic and taken another route.  That way I wouldn’t have to sit here until my kidneys burst and die a slow and tortuous death!” Ell yelled.

 

“Ok, reach into the backseat and pull out the time-turner Hermione gave me.  That way, we can go back in time, stop Snape from killing Dumbledore and take another fucking route.”

 

“I cannot believe you just spoiled that for me. You _knew_ I was on book four! You…”  I’m going to skip the next bit of conversation in order to save you from numerous expletives from both parties, which finally resulted in me angrily blasting rap music in order to drown out Ell’s screams.

 

\--

 

The next couple of hours went by in a similar fashion. Several times I almost just got out of the car and started walking to Montreal.  The traffic was unbearable and Ell was slowly driving me to consider homicide as my next move.   By around midnight, after ten hours of driving and about seven miles covered, we decided to pull off the road and sleep.  I would have continued if Ell hadn’t threatened to start singing again, so really what happened next was all her fault.  The entire side of the road was littered with cars, but we were lucky enough to spot a small opening by the edge of trees.  In hindsight, it wasn’t a very good idea. 

 

Lucky for us, Z-Flu hadn’t reached that far north yet, so while we were safe from zombies, we were most certainly not safe from thieves. Before you judge me on the next series of events, remember that I was a 23-year-old girl who had grown up in an upper-middle class family, accompanied by a 21-year-old billionaire who was too proud to pee in a Big Gulp cup, sleeping in a three hundred thousand dollar Rolls Royce.

 

It must have been about two hours since we’d fallen asleep when I first heard a strange sound coming from outside. Ell was fast asleep, mumbling something about a Gucci knockoff and clutching her slushie like a teddy bear, when I hazily heard a man’s hushed whisper. 

 

“Ell,” I whispered, gently nudging her in the passenger seat. 

 

“No, the money’s in the pool,” she said half-asleep, turning her back to me.

 

By now I could hear the man’s voice a little clearer. It didn’t sound like he was speaking to anyone, although I was almost certain he wasn’t alone, because what kind of crazy guy wanders the highway in the middle of the night talking to himself?  I shook Ell a little harder this time, only for her to briefly wake up, tell me to fuck off, and promptly fall back asleep.  Clearly she was useless.  Just as I was reaching for my suitcase to pull out a pair of nail clippers, which I believed I could use as a weapon (exactly how I’m not entirely sure), a light was shone in my eye. Temporarily blinded, I squinted into the brightness. 

 

As my eye’s adjusted, I could make out what looked to be a fairly heavyset older man with fire red hair.  I was immediately relieved, because I had faith that I would be able to take down, or at least outrun, an obese 50-year-old ginger if the situation arose. 

 

“Let me in!” the man yelled, knocking on the driver’s side window.

 

My first instinct was to lie back down and ignore him, which I probably should have done but Ell was still fast asleep and I was unsure what to do (not that she would have been much help anyways). Turning the car on, I lowered the window about an inch, so as to hear the man better.

 

“Please, let me in!” He repeated, somewhat clawing at the small opening. 

 

I’ve been called heartless many times in my life, most recently two hours prior when I stole Ell’s last stick of gum, but the truth of the matter is, when the cards are on the table, I like to believe I’m not as cruel as others make me out to be; I couldn’t leave that man outside to die.  Once again, I’d like to remind you that it was 2 o’clock in the morning, the world was quickly turning into Zombieland, and I was a privileged white girl with no life experience to speak of.  So, I unlocked the doors and moved my seat up so that man could get into the back seat.

 

“Thank God!” he said, opening the back door. “I hope you got room for four!”

 

With that, he whistled sharply and, from the tree line, came a haggard looking group of three other redheads.  He waved his arms at them, ushering them quickly to the car.

 

“Hey, wait…” I began, but it was too late. Before I could protest any further, the man and his red-headed posse were warming their freckled little hands in the back seat of Ell’s car.

 

 


	2. 20 Questions, Garden Shears and a Rifle

 

What started off as an unpleasant and downright maddening road trip north had now become a complete and total nightmare.  When I say nightmare, I don’t just mean your run of the mill scary dream where you wake up sweating and then fall right back to sleep.  No.  This was the type of nightmare that stays with you for days; the type of nightmare that haunts you even in your waking hours; the type of dream where you’re buried 60 feet underground, drowning in your own blood, and when you wake you can still taste the dirt and metal in your mouth.  Now I know exactly what you’re thinking: “Oh, Carmilla!  It can’t be that bad!  You’re exaggerating.”  Let me be very clear; it takes a very special type of person to make you want to voluntarily become a Zombie Happy Meal, and in that moment, I was crammed into a car with four of them.  

 

The Perrys were some of the happiest, blindly cheerful, and perpetually optimistic people I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.  Even when the world around them was burning to the ground, they somehow managed to shrug it off, smile, and go about the rest of their day as if they weren’t walking on ashes.    Their world was rose-colored, zombie-free and chock-full of silver linings.   

 

David, the Perry patriarch, was a middle-aged, over-weight, balding construction worker whose greatest pride and accomplishment was the birth of his three daughters.  He was the type of man who had a wallet full of photos and a wall in his house ruined by the notches of his growing children.  You would think after hearing David speak of his girls, that they were the second, third and fourth coming of the Messiah.  Candice, his wife, was a quiet woman who lovingly laughed at all of David’s jokes (no matter how many times she had heard them), and seemed perfectly happy playing the role of the unassuming and supportive mother.  You could tell that at one point in her life she had been a great beauty; now, her make up bag was filled with other people’s asthma inhalers, coupons,  hair elastics, and snacks.  She was easily the most tolerable of the Perrys and the only one I would have felt guilty about pushing out of a speeding car.  Their three daughters were Charlotte, Lola and Jasmine.  Charlotte, the oldest, had not joined them on their family trip to New York that year, as she was “too busy being a superstar at Harvard” (David’s words, not mine).  Jasmine, the youngest, was one of those children who knew with all certainty that they were adorable and could, with the right pout or smile, get away with pretty much anything.  Lola, on the other hand, was the very definition of a middle child.  She seemed almost desperate for her parents approval and was in a constant state of anxiety over how best to make them notice her.  She demanded their attention by being an over-achiever in almost every aspect of her life, but was sadly outshone by her PhD candidate older sister and adorable younger one.  She was also, by far, the most insufferable.  

 

Six people crammed into a relatively small car is really only fun when the five other people are celebrities holding large cheques with your name on them.  Instead, I was stuck with a neurotic heiress and four incessantly positive redheads.  If that wasn’t bad enough, I was also on my way to Canada (the United States’ polite, weed-smoking, gay upstairs neighbour), on the run from a sudden zombie apocalypse, and stuck in traffic so bad I probably could have crawled to Montreal faster.    

 

\--

 

“I can’t believe she’s still asleep,” Jasmine said, examining Ell from her perch on Candice’s lap.  “Are we completely sure she’s not dead?” she asked her mother, gently poking Ell’s shoulder.  “I saw a documentary once about this guy who picked up hitchhikers just so he could kill them and turn them into puppets.”  She eyed me cautiously and retreated further back into the car.  

 

“Wow, that sounds like a terrific documentary, Jazz!  Where’d you see it?” David asked his daughter while Candice smiled apologetically at me through the rear-view mirror.  “We’ll have to write that one down to watch with Char when she gets home.  I wonder if she’s seen it?  Knowing her, I’m sure she has.  You know how much she loves documentaries!” He said to Lola, who was probably making a mental note to watch more documentaries when she got home.  

 

It had taken us close to 30 minutes to get out of our spot on the side of the highway and, over the past hour, we had travelled a little more than half a mile.  I was glad Ell was still asleep, because I still wasn’t sure how I would explain the four strangers in the back seat.   I knew I really only had two options.  Option One was to come clean and tell Ell that I had pitied them and agreed to drive them as far north as Plattsburgh.  The Perrys had been visiting New York on their annual “Red-Head-Squad, Abroad!” family vacation.  When the news hit, it had taken less than 2 hours for all major airports to be shut down. They had no car, 3 small suitcases of clothing and no way home.  Rather than hunker down and wait out the apocalypse there, the family decided to hitchhike back home to Vermont.  The problem I had with Option One was that I would be forced to admit I actually cared about other people and their survival.  Ell probably wouldn’t have believed it anyways.  Option #2 was to tell Ell that they had threatened me at gun point but, as clueless as Ell was, it would have taken her about 20 seconds of speaking with them to know that they were incapable of any form of violence.  Of course, since Ell rarely woke up before 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I had plenty of time to come up with other excuses.

 

\--

 

“So, Carmilla, what do you do?” Lola asked.  Her family was in a heated game of I Spy and she was evidently growing tired of mistakenly pointing out inanimate objects (there’s only so many times you can say “is it _that_ car?”).

 

“I’m an actress.” I said, using the smug voice all actresses suddenly seem to have when revealing their profession to someone new. 

 

“Oh, that’s cool.  Have I seen you anything?” She asked, sounding genuinely curious.  

 

I absolutely hated that question.  It’s like, how am I supposed to know your intricate personality quirks well enough to guess which TV shows or movies you watch?  If I say no, you’ll think I haven’t accomplished anything and, if I say yes, it means I’m an untalented actress who either starred in something you clearly had no interest in to begin with, or am so untalented you instantly wiped me from your memory.  

 

“Ya, probably.  I was in a couple national commercials recently,” I lied.  “Also, I was in an NBC pilot that wasn’t picked up.  It was way too progressive for prime time” I added, trying to maintain my air of superiority.  I obviously couldn’t tell her that the only job I’d ever booked had been for haemorrhoid cream where I wasn’t even technically paid.  

 

I knew she expected me to ask her what she did, but I didn’t want to give her any false sense of hope that we could actually become friends.  I knew she would imagine us braiding one another’s hair and gossiping about boys while eating cookie dough ice-cream in our matching pyjama onesies.  Had I shown her one ounce of kindness, she’d have been sitting in the back seat of the car fashioning BFF necklaces out of red hair and shoe laces.  I couldn’t have that.  Worst case scenario, she would be with us for three or four more days until we reached Plattsburgh.  Best case scenario, she’d find me rude and insulting and convince her family to get out right then.

 

—

 

At 3:30, Ell woke up.  

 

She groggily rubbed at her eyes and stretched out, tossing the fur coat she had used as a blanket aside.  Her mascara and eyeliner had smudged into two dark racoon-like shaped circles and her bright red lipstick was messily smeared down her chin.  She looked like she’d been up partying for the better part of the night and had only now crawled back home.  She most certainly _did not_ look like she had had a solid 14 hours of blissful, redhead-free sleep. 

 

“What time is it?” She said around a yawn. 

 

“It’s 3:30, sleepy head!” David said from the back seat. “You know what they say!”  He look eagerly towards his family and, in unison, they shouted “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!”

 

For what it’s worth, I probably would have floated the whole “four strangers in the back seat thing” a little softer.  

 

—

 

  The whole thing had started off innocently enough.  Ell had thrown her purse in David’s face, screamed at me for having allowed a crazy rag tag group of murderers into her car, and tried to rip the visor clean off the car’s ceiling to use as a make-shift boomerang.  Once I had calmed her down to slightly below completely insane, Jasmine committed the ultimate crime.  She attempted to introduce herself using a tool she had found exceptionally successful up until that point in her short little life: a hug.  So, while it _had_ been fun watching Ell attempt to defend herself with nothing but an oversized coat and and a nail file, it was definitely _not_ fun trying to convince her to get back into the car.

 

“Please Ell, they’re completely harmless and I’m exhausted.  Just get in the car” I said, gently trying to coax her back in after several minutes of arguing.  I usually would not have shown so much restraint, but my escape to Canada depended entirely on the use of her car. 

 

“Harmless?!  That little girl attacked me, Carmilla!  Do you see this?” She said, pointing to a small scratch on her elbow.  “That girl has mutilated me!  She’s psychotic.  I don’t want to be around when Ginny Weasley goes into a dissociative state and kills us all.”  

 

“Ell, she’s like eight.  It’s not her fault that you freaked out while she was trying to hug you.”

 

“Oh no, that was no hug.  She lunged at me.  LUNGED.”  She yelled.  “You should have seen her eyes, Carmilla.  I’m telling you, there’s evil in there,” she said, pointing frantically to the small child in the back seat.  

 

“I can pretty much say with 100% certainty that the tiny 70 pound girl with pig-tails and My Little Pony shirt did not lunge at you,” I promised her.  

 

Ell shook her head, unconvinced.  My patience was beginning to wear thin and just as I was about to simply grab Ell and stuff her back into the car, Lola hopped out of the back seat.  Ell immediately hid behind me and took her best defence position.  

 

“Hey, I’m really sorry if we scared you back there.  Dads, right?” Lola said, keeping her ground so as not to frighten Ell any more than she already was.  “My name’s Lola, but you can just call me Perry, all of my other friends do.  My family and I were stuck in New York when the airports were closed.  We’d been walking on the I-95 for 8 hours before we found you guys.  We just really want to get home and meet up with my sister Charlotte and make sure she’s safe, you know?  I promise we aren’t here to rob you, or hurt you in any way,” she added, taking a small step forward.  “If you’d rather we find someone else to bring us north, we can do that too.  You seem like a pretty cool person though, so I hope you let us stay.” 

 

I really really wish that that was the last time I saw Perry reasoning with a crazy person.

 

\--

 

We’d only been on the road for three days before we ran out of food.  Before leaving, I had stopped and picked up enough snacks to feed an angry clan of starving rhinos for at least a week.  The sandwiches were the first to go, followed closely by the rice krispies, chocolate bars and cheetos.  I tried to hoard some of the pistachios in my pocket, but the little bastards were too difficult to open in secret.  Soon, the road behind us was littered with liquorice wrappers, cookie boxes, apple cores and olive pits; our own disgusting trail of bread crumbs.  How we managed to eat so much so quickly is still a mystery to me.  One explanation could have been boredom.  We tried playing car games, but this is usually how they went:

 

**Perry:** Are you thinking of a person?

 

**David:** Nope!

 

**Candice:**   Hunny, we agreed the category was Celebrities.  It was Ell’s choice.

 

**David:**   Okay, but what if the category wasn’t celebrities?  What if the category, was, oh I don’t know, Things You Can Find At Home Depot?

 

**Me:**   Is it something you can find at Home Depot?

 

**David:**   Aha!  Now we’re getting closer…

 

**Ell:**   I don’t understand.  I thought we were talking about celebrities?  What is a home depot?

 

**Jasmine** :  IT’S A HAMMER!

 

**David:**   Well, no, but good guess, Jazz!  You’re so close!

 

**Perry:**   How was that a good guess?  She was wrong…

 

**Candice:**   Don’t stifle her creativity, Lola.

 

**Me** :  Can you find it in the kitchen department?

 

**David** :  Absolutely!

 

**Jasmine:**   IT’S A FRIDGE!

 

**David:**   No… but close!

 

**Perry:** So it’s close to both a hammer _and_ a fridge?  How…

 

**David:**   Oh wait, never mind guys, they don’t sell these at Home Depot.   Okay, the category is….

 

I was pretty sure the next game we played would end in either tears or bloodshed.  We’d been on the road three days in gridlocked traffic, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before we were forced to walk.  The traffic was already much worse than when we had started.  What had taken us an hour to complete before, now took us three or four times that.  We drove in shifts, 24 hours a day, and had only managed a little over 40 miles.  We kept the car off while we sat, so as to conserve gas, but we weren’t far from empty.  We all desperately needed a distraction and Ell and Jasmine had already begun complaining about our lack of food.  

 

That was when we noticed the Walmart.  

 

Its big neon sign beckoned to us from above the tree line, as if God had placed it there solely for our own personal shopping needs.   Unanimously, we decided to go pick up more food and some basic survival gear.  From what we heard on the radio, the infestation had already hit New York City.  We weren’t much further north; it wouldn’t be long before our first encounter.  The Perrys, of course, were so deep in denial they could have legally called themselves Egyptian.  Because there was no way of getting to the Walmart in our car, we hopped out and started walking.  We were confident that we could be in and out before the car ahead of us moved too much.  The Walmart was right off the highway and it took us a little over 10 minutes to get there.  The parking lot was relatively empty and all of the building’s windows had been shattered.  It was pretty obvious that it had been looted recently.  We should have turned back, but our rumbling stomachs pushed us further.  (Mistake #1).

 

“Huh, has there been a storm recently?” Candice asked as she eyed the glass at her feet.

 

“Maybe a freak tornado?” Perry said, carefully tiptoeing around the shards.

 

We decided to split up into two groups of three in order to salvage faster and agreed that we would all meet outside in 10 minutes with whatever we were able to find.  Perry, David and I were tasked with finding gear, while Ell, Candice and Jasmine looked for food.   The store was completely trashed.  The shelves had been pulled up from the floor, the cash registers had all been ripped open, televisions were torn from the walls and most of the lights overhead were either smashed or hung low on their wires.  We walked over to what was, a few days earlier, the camping section and found most, if not everything, had already been stolen.  We did manage to find a children’s tent, some large garden shears, a screwdriver set and parts of a grill.  We then went to the electronics, where we were blessed with a pair of walkie talkies and two packs of AA batteries.  Finally, after searching through a tall pile of rubble in the beauty section, we also found half a pack of toilet paper and some feminine hygiene products.  I would have loved to have found some soap or deodorant, since it had been four days since my last shower and I’m almost positive I smelled worse than the bottom of a 16-year-old boys cum-stained laundry basket.  

 

“You know, I bet they keep a first aid kit in the back” David said, glancing at the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign.

 

We had already been in the store our allotted 10 minutes, but David insisted that a good first aid kit was worth an extra 3.  He was a hard man to argue with, so Perry and I followed instead.  (Mistake #2).  The employee’s room was locked, so David got down on his knees and began unscrewing the hinges with our newly acquired tools.  It didn’t take him long to remove the door.  The room was pitch black and none of the light switches seemed to work.  

 

“It’s kinda spooky in there,” David said, taking a tentative step into the room.  

 

Perry and I reluctantly followed.  We slowly made our way through the room, clutching one another and blindly groping our surroundings.  I knew there was no way in hell we would find the first aid kit in the darkness, but I decided to appease David’s curiosity for another minute or so.  Because I could see the light from where we had come, I felt somewhat reassured.  That’s when my foot slipped out from under me and I fell to the ground, bringing Perry down with me.  Hard.  I dropped the batteries and toilet paper and found myself face down in a puddle of something sticky.  The garden shears Perry was holding had cut deeply into my leg and I was pretty sure my left wrist was broken.

 

“Perry?!  Carmilla, are you…”   

 

I remember the sound of his screams; I still dream about them at night.  They were deep and guttural and I knew from the moment he started that he would be dead soon.  I could hear the sound of ripping flesh and breaking bones and a high pitched scream I didn’t recognize as my own until many months later.  Perry was screaming as well.  I can hear her frenzied mantra now too _dad, dad, dad, no please, dad, dad, dad_.  She struggled in my grip, clawing at me, desperately trying to follow his screams.  With as much strength as I had left, I dragged her, kicking and screaming, back towards the light.  

 

David’s last word was _RUN_.  And we did.  

 

\--

 

 

Candice, Ell and Jasmine were waiting for us outside.  They had been much more successful than we had.  The first thing they must have seen was the blood; we were covered head to toe in it.  

 

“Lola!?” Candice screamed. “What happened?  Where’s your father?” 

 

Perry collapsed into her mothers arms.  Her eyes were wild and her hands were raw and I had to pry the garden shears from them.  

 

“He’s dead” I said.  

 

\--

 

I wish I could say we had time to mourn David.  I wish I could say we all sat outside that Walmart, silently praying for him and saying goodbye.  But we didn’t.  Nobody went back in to see if he was still alive, because within minutes he was crawling back out the doors.   (Out of respect for the Perry family, I will not describe the state David was in.  Suffice it to say, we knew he could not have survived his injuries).  

 

Before anything could be done, a shot rang out.  To our left stood a girl about my age.  She had long brown hair down to her waist and was looking down the barrel of a rifle.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this, sorry if it's dark. It's gonna get A LOT darker so stop now if you don't like that. You can find me on tumblr if you'd like, my name is the same :)


	3. Laura

I still find it pretty crazy to think the first time I ever laid eyes on Laura, she was putting a bullet through Perry’s father’s skull.  I honestly wish I could tell you that I fell in love with her the moment I saw her, that I experienced some life altering shift where my vision narrowed and all I saw was her.  But that would be a lie.  It didn’t happen like the movies promised, but to be fair, nothing did.  It took a ferris wheel, a crazed zombie-loving cult, the leader of a pack of renegade zombie hunters and the death of a friend to realize that.  But I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

My first impression of Laura was that she was probably the type of girl who shouldn’t have owned a gun.  She was a tiny 5 foot 2 ball of nerdy rage who made far too many pop culture references and saw the world as a collection of injustices she was meant to right.  While the Perrys saw the world through rose-colored glasses, Laura saw it through black and white ones.  There were no shades of grey in Laura Hollis’ view of the world.  Things were either right or they were wrong and if you believed otherwise, you were part of the problem.  She very rarely stopped to consider the consequences of her actions and lived most of her life charging headfirst into any situation she was faced with.  I think Perry probably shared this first impression of Laura with me and, while I’m still being honest, I don’t think she ever fully forgave Laura for what she had done.    I guess putting a bullet through your fathers recently zombified brains can do that to a person.  Laura always did have one hell of a shot.  

 

Xx

 

I think it’s probably safe to say that Laura and the Perry family didn’t start off on the best of terms, but then again, neither did we.  We were huddled together, Perry and her family collapsed on the cement, the three of them sat in silent shock, their father’s body unmoving and lifeless across the lot.  Ell was swaying slowly on her feet, her over-sized fur coat wrapped tightly around her small body, her eyes still dark with smeared mascara and eyeliner, a bag of groceries clutched firmly in her once perfectly manicured hands.  And across from us was Laura, her rifle still at the ready, it’s barrel pointed squarely at our little group. 

 

“Has anyone else been bitten?” were the first words she spoke to me.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Tiny Rambo, what’s your problem?” were the first words that _I_ said to _her_.  I’ll admit that they were perhaps not the ideal choice, but I’ve never been one for ‘doing what’s best’.  

 

“I said has anyone else been bitten” she repeated, stepping closer and angling her gun at me.  She was wearing high waisted jeans and a blue button down shirt, its collar and sleeves dyed brown with dirt and mud.  Her face was covered in a thick layer of  what I hoped was her own blood, and not that of her last victims, and her long brown hair was matted and filled with tiny sticks and crumbled bits of leaves.  I also noticed that she was barefoot, something she apparently was unaware of as she stood amongst the broken shards of glass that littered the abandoned parking lot.

 

“No, no one else has been bitten” I said, raising my hands in submission. 

 

“Why are you covered in blood?” she asked, her gun not lowering an inch.

 

“Oh you know, for a laugh.  What’s a Thursday afternoon at Walmart without a ritual blood shower?” I said.   I’d originally decided that perhaps antagonizing the gun toting crazy person was not the wisest of decisions, because someone who could put a bullet between another person’s eyes from across a parking lot, barefoot, in a pile of glass, was probably not someone I wanted to piss off even more.  But there was something about her eyes that told me she was just as scared as I was, and something about the way her hands shook that told me she didn’t want to shoot again.

 

“Sarcasm seems like a really odd choice right now, I’m not gonna lie” she said, her head cocked to one side.  There was the faintest of smiles on her lips, which I found more unsettling than friendly.

 

“Ya, well excuse me for not knowing the formal social expectations of being held at gun point by a barefoot lunatic.  This is pretty new to me.  Am I supposed to curtsy?” I asked.  Ell swatted at me and hissed my name under her breath. 

 

Laura tentatively took another few step towards us.  She stopped a couple meters away and warily eyed our haggard little group.  We certainly weren’t the most presentable bunch, but I suppose neither was she.  I imagine that she was, at that moment, frantically calculating her options.  Clearly she hadn’t thought this plan out very well, something she did with remarkable ease and startling regularity I would soon learn, and was now becoming aware of the current predicament she was in. Sure, she had the upper hand considering she was, you know, armed, but she apparently wasn’t quite prepared to commit mass murder on a group of innocent people comprised of an alarming number of gingers.  

 

After a few uncomfortable minutes of silence, she slowly lowered her gun.  And that’s when Perry pounced.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short addition to the story. I've recently had a renewed interest in the series (thank you gay jesus for the xmas bundle), and although this chapter is really short, I'm really hoping to pick it up again now that I've got more time. I apologize that there isn't more, and that it took me so long to update, but hopefully it's enough to get you back into it. I may just pump out these short 1K word chapters. Let me know if you're at all interested in me continuing, and maybe if you'd prefer to wait for longer chapters, or if the short more regularly updated ones interest you at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will probably be bumped up to Explicit later on. Hope you like it.


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